“Bacon?” Ramsay looked at her as if he feared she’d lost her mind.
“Like Frances Bacon!” Phoebe held up her doll triumphantly, doing her level best to make some sort of connection.
Cecelia smiled fondly at the girl. “Just like,” she praised. “Baconian ciphers are tedious but ingenious because the meaning isn’t in the numbers or letters themselves, but how they are assembled, most often in clusters of five representing one letter.”
Jean-Yves motioned for her to pick up the book, which she did, and he replaced it on the table with his plate of sandwiches. “I suddenly regret not putting bacon on these,” he muttered.
“Me too,” Phoebe emphatically agreed. “Bacon is delicious.”
“So—” Ramsay reached for the book, and Cecelia handed it over the platter. He opened it, his brows bunching together as he scanned the formulae as if he might now understand. “If ye employ this Baconian cipher, ye’ll decode the message?”
“I’ve done it already.” She beamed.
“Aye?” Ramsay straightened and then turned his head sideways as if he could see the code more clearly. “But ye said ye didna solve the riddle,” he reminded her slowly.
“My problem was that I assumed Henrietta only used one code. However, upon employing the Baconian cipher, I uncovered a second set of coded information, but this one is much shorter. So all I have to do is figure out this code.” She tapped her finger to her chin. “That is, unless there is a third layer, but that isn’t very likely.”
“Have you gotten to the good news part yet?” Jean-Yves asked impatiently, taking the seat next to her. “I’d like to eat my supper.”
“I’m that much closer, likely halfway. Tomorrow I get to work on turning numbers into letters!” She shook her fists in front of her in a gesture of celebratory victory as the room at large blinked at her for another moment before collectively deflating.
“Halfway?” Ramsay repeated the word as if he’d never heard it before, frowning his obvious discontent. “What do ye have to do in order to finish?”
Jean-Yves held up a staying hand. “You’ll regret that question, my lord. I suggest we eat before another lengthy cryptography lesson puts us early to sleep.” He winked over at Cecelia, who falsified a smile.
She didn’t mind the teasing, really she didn’t. However, she suddenly wanted to slump back into the room and hide from them all. From him.
Was Ramsay’s desire to be free of her so consuming that the thought of another three days in her presence caused him such obvious chagrin?
Reaching for a sandwich, she put one on Jean-Yves’s plate, and called Phoebe over while dishing her meal in silence.
It would forever be impossible to get a room excited about maths. Such was her life. If she’d been in the room with another mathematician, he’d have realized that she’d concluded what might have taken most ingenious code breakers the better part of several days in only three.
She mentally congratulated herself and bit into a delectable ham and olive sandwich. “If this is supper, what’s in the cauldron over the fire?” she asked.
“Water for yer bath.”
A silken undertone in Ramsay’s voice caused Cecelia to swallow prematurely, and a chunk of sandwich made a slow and painful descent of her chest.
She reached for a drink of Jean-Yves’s ale to wash it down, ignoring the Frenchman’s protestations.
When she glanced back up at Ramsay, a glimmer in his eye made her certain he was picturing her taking said bath. How she knew, she couldn’t say, but the wicked gleam remained, brushing her in places she’d rather not consider in a crowded room.
Confused and increasingly distraught, she searched his features for answers. Did he want to be free of her because of temptation, or in spite of it? Why insinuate his displeasure with her one moment, and then scorch her clothing from her body with his gaze the next?
Phoebe approached the table, hiding something behind her back.
“I see you and Lord Ramsay already had your baths,” Cecelia noted, smiling across at the dear girl.
“Lord Ramsay had to wash the blood of his deer from him in the loch,” Phoebe explained, affixing a rapturous look up as she took her place beside him. “Then he taught me how to swim.”
“Did he, indeed?” Cecelia also cast a level gaze toward the Scot in question. “I imagine that’s why your lips are blue.”
“I’m almost warm.” Phoebe rushed to cut off any objection by complimenting her. “And I think it’s wonderful that you found the bacon code. You’re ever so clever, Cecelia.”
“Thank you, darling.” She was glad someone thought so. “Aren’t you hungry after swimming?”
“Don’t you think she’s clever, Lord Ramsay?” Phoebe gave him a meaningful look, nudging him with her elbow.
Ramsay paused with a sandwich halfway to his mouth before looking down at the girl rather than across at her. “Aye, she’s both clever and wise, little one. Now eat yer supper.”
“And beautiful,” Phoebe added. “You can’t forget beautiful, because you mentioned how lovely she was by the loch.”
Jean-Yves’s ill-muffled chortle drowned out Cecelia’s drastic intake of breath.
Phoebe slid a bouquet of heather with little sprigs of gypsophila from behind her back as two cheeky dimples appeared next to her mouth.
“Are those for me?” Cecelia asked, flushing with maternal pleasure.
Phoebe didn’t answer. Instead, she nudged the Highlander in his biceps, her finger giving before his muscle did. “Here. Lord Ramsay, here.”
“What’s going on?” Jean-Yves asked. “You picked flowers for Lord Ramsay, petite?”
“No,” Phoebe said from the side of her mouth toward Jean-Yves. “He’s supposed to give it to her.” She thrust the bouquet beneath Ramsay’s nose, forcing him to drop his sandwich. “Go on,” she urged. “Don’t be shy.”
Ramsay curled every finger slowly around the base of the bouquet as if it might be the little girl’s neck. “Impeccable timing, lass,” he muttered.
Phoebe beamed, oblivious—or perhaps immune—to the sarcasm oozing from Ramsay’s comment. He thrust the flowers at her over the table, and Cecelia had to wipe her fingers on a linen before she reached for them.
“No,” Phoebe crowed. “Not like that. You must stand and present it to her properly.”
“Gallantly, I daresay,” Jean-Yves chimed in, earning him a soft elbow jab from Cecelia.
“Gallant, exactly,” Phoebe agreed with an emphatic nod as she sat and gathered her sandwich into both hands. “A moment like this demands gallantry. A hero cannot simply hand his lady a flower.”
“I’m no hero,” Ramsay said at the same moment Cecelia thought it prudent to point out, “I’m not his lady.”
Phoebe ignored all of this. “There must be a gesture of some sort, wouldn’t you agree?”
“A grand gesture,” Jean-Yves agreed.
Cecelia had a few choice gestures for her butler, but she couldn’t bring herself to make them in front of a child.
She watched half in hope and half in agony as Ramsay set his jaw and stood.